It’s tough to find a bad pair of wireless earbuds these days and the pricing of such sound cans keeps plummeting. So, what’s the difference between buying this device from Xiaomi, Samsung or OnePlus? It’s about the phone you are using, the level of customisation offered on the app and, of course, fit of the buds. OnePlus Buds Pro 3 manages to deliver on all fronts, making it a sensible choice for use in gyms or during Zoom calls. Samsung too has come up with a great pair of buds called Galaxy Buds3 and those make a lot of sense if you are using a Samsung phone.

Firm fit

The new buds from OnePlus come stashed in a unique-looking case: It’s not glossy cheap-looking plastic that you get with most true wireless earbuds. Instead, you get this soft-touch leathery finish on both the front and the back and a matte strip separating the sides. It’s pleasantly fingerprint and grease-proof.

The Golden Sound feature tunes audio to the shape of your ear canal, while an earbud fit test ensures you’re using the correct ear tips

The textured design also helps with the grip. The buds offer a comfortable fit; you’ve got several sizes of soft silicon tips in the box. After using it for a few weeks, I found these are good for wearing over two-odd hours without experiencing ear fatigue. The fit is firm, so I am not worried about them flying out of my ears even while jogging/walking, which doesn’t often sit well with a Garfield-like character. It’s rated IP55 sweat/water and dust-resistant, so don’t fully submerge them in water.

The earbuds come with Bluetooth 5.4 support, easy pairing with Android devices and support for dual connection, so you can pair up with a couple of devices simultaneously, like a smartphone and a laptop. If you don’t have a OnePlus phone, you can find all the functions in the HeyMelody app which you can grab from the Google Play Store.

You can check on the remaining battery life of the buds, play around with features like active noise cancellation, access sound presets, turn on game mode for minimal lag and, of course, do an earbud fit test just to prove you have the right bits of silicon slipping into your ears.

Respects the soundstage

It’s the sound department that wins OnePlus brownie points. The buds come with Spatial Audio with head tracking. One feature that impresses me is Golden Sound, which allows the buds to tune the audio to the ear canal structure — you can experience the boost to lows, mids or highs… whatever you have difficulty listening to.

The soundboard is respected by the buds and each instrument shines when you are listening to, say, Alan Parsons Project. All thanks to the dual drivers (11mm woofer and 6mm tweeter), custom-engineered with Dynaudio, and two DACs packed in each earbud. Further, the dual-magnet dynamic driver comes with a 30-layer ceramic-metal diaphragm. The dedicated Digital-to-Analog Converters tune each driver to tailor sound for textured bass and nuanced treble.

Listening to Kacey Musgraves’ latest album, Deeper Well, on these sound cans is a joy. It easily captures the folk energy of her music as Musgraves still sounds like she’s tripping… on hope and cosmic love.

No matter what earbuds you use, after a couple of hours, you would like to listen to music on a “proper” setup. Nonetheless, in the HeyMelody app, there is Sound Master EQ and a variety of audio presets. You can also pull up your own equaliser to finetune the sound.

If you don't have a OnePlus device, you can still access almost all of these features through the HeyMelody app

OnePlus has also boosted the noise-cancelling smarts with good adaptive ANC which can smother out most background noises. It can scale up or down to suit whatever environment you’re in.

The microphones too work well and there is a voice pickup sensor to ensure a boost to your vocals.

Should you buy it?

You can get up to 43 hours on a full charge but that comes with a set of conditions. But where OnePlus wins is the level of customisation in the sound department. OnePlus Buds Pro 3 is reliable and respects the music you enjoy listening to the most.

At a glance

Device: OnePlus Buds Pro 3

Price: Rs 11,999

High notes

Clear audio separation

The app is versatile

Good design and fit

Muffled notes

Transparency mode could have been better